SINGAPORE - Artificial intelligence (AI) may soon be used across the entire Home Team, with officers of its science and technology agency now being told to “think AI first”.
From deploying ambulances to identifying crimes on video footage to the public filing police reports, AI will be used to make the Home Team more efficient, said Mr Chan Tsan, chief executive of the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX).
HTX launched its AI movement on June 1, with the goal of deploying AI capabilities across the entire Home Team and making it AI-ready in the next few years.
“We want to gear up HTX to be an ‘AI first’ organisation,” said Mr Chan.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to replace everyone with AI. It means we want HTX officers to think ‘AI first’ in the work that they do, to see how we can use AI to make the work more effective and efficient.”
To do this, a budget of $400 million will be set aside for HTX projects in the next three years, with a significant chunk of it going to AI research and development, he said.
Mr Chan said there are many opportunities brought about by AI, but that it is also being used by criminals.
“It’s a double-edged sword. You already see people using it, exploiting it, to make fake news, for scams.
“For us, AI is not just a good-to-do, but a must-do. We have to ride this wave or get left behind.”
To support its AI push, HTX intends to hire and groom a 500-person AI workforce in the next three to five years.
Mr Chan said this was significant, as it represented a quarter of the agency’s current 2,000 employees.
The HTX workforce has doubled in less than five years from its 1,000 headcount when the statutory board was launched in December 2019.
Before HTX’s formation, the different Home Team departments each had their own science and tech branches.
But with the agency consolidating talent and projects, they can now reap economies of scale.
Mr Chan said this coordination, which has allowed the Home Team to modernise its information technology infrastructure, will help save more than $1 billion in future costs.
He said the Home Team had been using AI for years, but often without officers even realising it.
He pointed out that in 2023, HTX counted more than 100 of its projects involving AI. The agency currently manages some 600 projects across the Home Team.
He said some AI projects included the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority’s new clearance concept, where the technology is used in facial recognition, and police cameras or PolCams, which use video analytics powered by AI.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force, he added, has been using AI to optimise its deployment of resources such as ambulances.
And there are plans for an AI chatbot to help the public draft online police reports.
The Home Team Academy is also exploring the use of AI to train officers by 2025.
Mr Chan said: “Even before ChatGPT, even before this new generative AI wave, we had already been using AI in different ways that are not very obvious to citizens or even officers. They are very much what we call ‘under the hood’.”
He stressed that for any decision informed by any AI system, a human must and will always be kept in the loop, and officers will be trained to understand the limits of AI.
Beyond the hype, AI is more than just a buzzword, said Mr Chan.
“Of course, some of it is still hype. But I do think there are a lot of potential opportunities,” he said.